WILLIAM COYOTE wrote:
I'm looking for plans,kits,completre conversions of Bud Rinker's gear drive conversion for Corvair engines. I'm interested in purchasing any plans,kits or ,conversions available. Also would like to know if anyone is flying a Rinker Redrive today. This seems like the correct conversion for Corvairs; no crank breakage, and the reduction ratio puts the Corvair in the proper torque curve unlike the direct drive Corvairs. Any response would be appreciated.
By the way, a cheaper, lighter insurance policy against crank failures on the Corvair is a fifth bearing. And it doesn't add another point of failure to the mix, that being the accessory end of the crank not to mention the PSRU itself. The only person that I know of who ever flew the Rinker (Bud Rinker and Richard Finch never succeed) had two failures of the harmonic balancer keyway as it was used to support the starter gear. Seems that gear lash was partly if not completely to blame.
As for "proper torque curve" that would be subjective. Higher RPM will just reduce TBO. There's no way around that.
The Rinker is a heavy piece of cast iron with internals that were never designed to spin nearly as fast as they do on an airplane engine and were never designed for 100+ horsepower. It's the drive gear from a VW bus tansaxle that maybe saw 20 horsepower and rarely over 800 rpm. For the Rinker to actually be a useful PSRU, the engine would need to spin in excess of 4,000 rpm, five times what it was ever intended to deliver in the bus.
Plus, there is no provision for a thrust bearing. A VW bus never saw any continuous side loads that would compare to 100 hp worth of thrust for hours on end.